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Netanyahu: The Only Path to Sustainable Quiet Is the Egyptian Initiative
(CNN) Candy Crowley - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview Sunday: "Hamas doesn't even accept its own cease-fire. It's continuing to fire at us as we speak. Israel has accepted five cease-fires since this conflict began, five. We accepted them and we implemented them, including two humanitarian cease-fires in the last 24 hours which Hamas rejected, as they rejected all the other cease-fires." "Hamas is simply continuing all its operations. And Israel will not let this terror organization decide when it's convenient for them and not convenient for them to attack our people, [and] when it's convenient for them to restock and reload." "Israel is doing what any other country would do, and certainly the U.S. would do. If 80% of your population were under fire and you had 60 seconds or 90 seconds to get into bomb shelters, if terror tunnels were dug underneath your border in order to come in and explode your kindergartens and massacre your people and kidnap American citizens, you would take action. If America was attacked by land, by sea, by air, you would take action. So, Israel is taking action." "Obviously, we hope we can get a sustainable quiet as soon as possible. I think the only path to do that is by adopting the Egyptian initiative....We need demilitarization. That's critical." "People said to us, enable concrete and cement to go into Gaza so they can rebuild, build schools, build hospitals and so on. They took all that cement and built this vast tunnel network penetrating into Israel, so they can come out under our towns, our cities, our schools and explode our children." "Remember, Hamas is firing at our cities, at our people, firing from these areas, from these homes, schools, mosques, hospitals....So, what would you do? Would you say, all right, we can't do anything because they are hiding behind civilians...and therefore [the U.S.] should absorb attacks on its own civilians, on its own forces?" "You don't want to give the terrorists immunity because they use civilians as a human shield. That's a mistake. I don't think Americans or Europeans or Asians or anyone else would want to have this established as a principle."